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Fellwock tells the Daily News: "He's not a terrorist. ... We all know him."

McGann is accused of carrying a phony bomb into LaGuardia. The airport was closed for several hours on Saturday.

McGann was charged with placing a false bomb in a transportation facility and making a terrorist threat. He's undergoing a psychiatric evaluation and if he's found competent he will appear in court Aug. 18.

I bet the phony bomb was just his metronome ticking and airport security is just retarded =O

I can see you've dealt with TSA workers too. The biggger the airport, the dumber and nastiers they are. I was out in OKC and Denver wherey they are some of the nicest people to deal with.

NY, Boston, and O'Hare, they must hire the creatures from the zoos. I shouldn't be so hard on the zoo creatures... It's all about customer service. I look at it this way, they took a job that requires interfacing with the public, therefore they should do it with as much enthusiasm as they should. I spent 20 years in the technical support/customer service role, and being pleasant takes a lot less work than these people think. The other thing is common sense. I wonder if they have any.

You really can't help but wonder if this 'fake bomb' wasn't really just a piece of sculpture from found objects. The TSA can be so ______________. Insert for yourself.

Though, I once traveled through Germany with a severe post surgical wound and the screener there smacked it hard to make sure I wasn't hiding anything under my bandages. I almost passed out from the pain. I mean, what??? Don't they realize that they have a reputation for cruelty that they might want to, um, live down?

Suffice it so say, the craziness has gone global.

So sad for this guy. I would bet my new piano that it was a complete mistake. Meanwhile, the guys who are real threats are now figuring out how to get their dangerous crap into quart size ziplock bags.

You really can't help but wonder if this 'fake bomb' wasn't really just a piece of sculpture from found objects. The TSA can be so ______________. Insert for yourself.

Though, I once traveled through Germany with a severe post surgical wound and the screener there smacked it hard to make sure I wasn't hiding anything under my bandages. I almost passed out from the pain. I mean, what??? Don't they realize that they have a reputation for cruelty that they might want to, um, live down?

Suffice it so say, the craziness has gone global.

So sad for this guy. I would bet my new piano that it was a complete mistake. Meanwhile, the guys who are real threats are now figuring out how to get their dangerous crap into quart size ziplock bags.

Sigh.

My cousin had an issue with them as well. She's a breast cancer survivor and needs special cream to help her skin because it dries out due to nerve damage, and uses the stuff every hour on the clock. They insisted that she put the stuff in a plastic bag and bury it in her luggage. She refused and then was strip-searched. No appologies or anything for the hard time they gave her after they could tell she was telling the truth.

The people that work for the TSA are a bit scary. I flew out of Manchester last June and one of the TSA guards was an older woman. She barked out orders like the prison matrons do in the movies. I shuddered inside when I saw her. I'd hate to be on the receiving end if I didn't cooperate with her.

I have an extremely common married name and I get pulled over for a search every time I travel (and my luggage gets searched coming and going every time )- I think someone else with that name is on their watch list or maybe they think it's an alias. According to my husband it's because I have very long almost black "ethnic" looking hair - - - so far I haven't been manhandled so I've learned to grin and bear it but I still repress a shudder. A part of me thinks eventually they'll make us all fly naked and restrained in our seats with the sort of clamp over the shoulders things they have on carnival rides.

I used to get the same treatment, for about five years (I had taken a lot of one way flights.) No trip would deliver me or my luggage unscathed. It may seem minor, but I am telling you that if pack certain pieces of ladies undergarments wrong, you wreck them. TSA owes me hundreds for destroyed maidenform. Always cheesed me off, esp. since when I get pulled out of line, I do seem to get extra special and intimate pat downs. Thank the lord, no strip searches- John, my heart really goes out to your cousin...

Nowadays, this only happens when I bring my (asian) husband (I am white, but he just looks 'foreign'.) He is from BROOKLYN. Doesn't matter. What's funny is that they pull me when I am with him, but no longer when I am alone. If people think these searches are 'random' they are sorely mistaken. There is profiling going on all day long, but I wonder how effective it is. I am sure your hair isn't doing you any favors, weird but likely true.

Andromaque
3000 Post Club Member
Registered: 08/29/08
Posts: 3886
Loc: New York

FYI on this story: The young man appeared in court and was not arraigned. He was committed toa mental health facility instead. Apparently he suffers from catatonic schizophrenia, by admission of the prosecutors.. Sad..

I have a friend who packs a rather giant ... type of um, marital aid ... in her luggage on purpose now. She bought it the first time her luggage got opened and the insides wrecked by searchers, and wrote on it in sharpie marker THANK YOU FOR VIOLATING MY CIVIL RIGHTS.

At this point, I pack weird-looking things on top with paper labels attached to them so they can get their mitts on them easily. One time, I was going to Wales for a month, and a friend had asked me to bring with me a metal cheese-sandwich maker for use in a fireplace. The thing looked like a land mine on a poker. I KNOW that got my luggage opened, and I put it on top with a label stuck on it that said THIS IS A TOASTED CHEESE SANDWICH MAKER.

Flying bites. :-(

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My niece just came over from Israel, and brought a shofar (a ram's horn modified so one can use it as a trumpet) with her. The Madrid equivalent of TSA seized it, claiming it could be used as a weapon. She protested, to no avail. Then the security people came on board her plane, just before it was to take off, and made her produce all of her documentation all over again, claiming it was a "security matter," presumably because of the fuss she made.

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